This study investigates whether the link between family dissolution and children’s educational attainment is contingent on the broader social and institutional context. The comparison of former capitalist West Germany and socialist East Germany presents an excellent case study as these countries differed considerably with regard to ideology and policies regarding families, schooling and...
This paper presents the results of a randomized study of a home visiting program implemented in Germany for low-income, first-time mothers. A major goal of the program is to improve the participants’ economic self-sufficiency and family planning. I use administrative data from the German social security system and detailed telephone surveys to examine the effects of the intervention on maternal employment, ...
Risk preferences are typically assumed to be constant for an individual across the life cycle. In this paper we empirically assess if they are time varying. Specifically, we analyse whether health shocks influence individual risk aversion. We follow an innovative approach and use grip strength data to obtain an objective health shock indicator. In order to account for the non-random nature of our data ...
In this paper, we propose a new comprehensive framework for analysing wage discrimination. This framework assesses wage discrimination on the grounds of conditional wage distributions (rather than just conditional means), regards the whole population (rather than just those in work) and employs a more general definition of work based on Margaret Reid's "third party criterion" (rather than a definition ...
This study investigates how the duration of child care leave taken by mothers and fathers relates to changes in couples’ division of housework and child care after postnatal labour market return in Germany. It explores whether take-up of child care related leave may impact the gender division of domestic work beyond the period of leave and examines three theoretical explanations: 1) development of ...
Integration of immigrants is a two-way process, the success of which depends both on immigrants and on natives. We provide new evidence on the determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration, using data from the 2005 and 2010 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel. In particular, we show that bitterness in life is strongly associated with worries about immigration. This effect cannot be ...
This study examines foreign exchange intervention based on novel daily data covering 33 countries from 1995 to 2011. We find that intervention is widely used and an effective policy tool, with a success rate in excess of 80 percent under some criteria. The policy works well in terms of smoothing the path of exchange rates, and in stabilizing the exchange rate in countries with narrow band regimes. ...
Mr. Kholodilin, how has the value of the ruble changed over the past few years? The exchange rate of Russian ruble has dropped considerably. In 2013, one euro was worth roughly 40 rubles; now, one euro is worth around 70 rubles. This devaluation is much stronger than it was during the Great Recession of 2008–2009. This interview with Konstantin Kholodilin is published in DIW ...
BAMS is a joint seminar by the DIW Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance, the HU Berlin and the WZB.
